


And Freyja Descended

by wyrm_n_sigun



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 09:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3284780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrm_n_sigun/pseuds/wyrm_n_sigun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It had honestly been years since Hiccup had really thought on his mother. When he was young, he sometimes did; as he would go to sleep some nights -- his father did not hold him, or sing to him, after all -- he would pretend. A blizzard howled its wrath even through the rafters, and he hunkered down and imagined.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>Mamma. Or Mummy, he couldn't remember which one he had called her. She didn't have a name anymore anyway; she was dead.</i></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Very slight AU of HTTYD2. Hiccup knows his mother, but also doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

Humans were an old memory, and an evil one. 

 

Ice exploded at them. She and they would always be at odds. 

 

Their curses followed her and the freed dragons even far distant. They would not touch her.

 

She was greater than their kind ever were. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A human, sitting on a Night Fury as he would a horse. Outfitting it in an array of straps and metal to make it pliable, of course. 

 

A human, standing amidst her children, her dragons, her only babies who mattered, and not attacking them.

 

A human, charming them with fire, as if he were one of them. 

 

A man, showing care to the Night Fury. A Night Fury, standing by him. 

 

A man, one-footed, with a story she was sure. A family. A shame, then. 

 

A man. She would know where he was going, what he wanted. He would not leave this place.

 

A youth. Familiar and painful-so. She cast the thought aside. She had her children to worry about. 

 

A youth. She had not seen a human's face this close in years. The trappers the previous night did not count. 

 

A youth. She needed one good reason to spare his life. 

 

A youth. She almost touched him. 

 

A boy. She had her reason. 

 

And she gasped. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She had once been human, herself. 

 

"Hiccup?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The voice cracked. 

 

He blinked. 

 

Slender fingers disappeared beneath claws again.

 

The mask came off. His half-second wonderings were confirmed; a woman, perhaps slightly younger than his father, was staring at him, looking so -- so impossibly  _amazed_ and  _human_ that he could not but stare back at her.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup was a child. Though, she supposed, he must be in his teens now. Another dragon-killer, like his father. Unaware of her absolute mercy, the gift she granted, in leaving them and Berk undisturbed. She could do no more for them: she was of a different world.

 

During the coldest days, when the eggs began to hatch and the babies caught themselves in her hair and arms, she refused to remember. Little Hiccup -- wan, with rosy cheeks and a sickly cough in spring and a knack for falling off furniture -- was not her son, not anymore.  

It had often occurred to her that he was probably dead, anyway. It was a miracle that took him past his first winter, and Berk was the seat of chaos and hunger even in its best hour. Her babe had died, as they all did, as her first babe had before him. Stoick was remarried. It didn't hurt. 

 

That was not her destiny. 

 

There was hair on his jaw. It struck her that he had spoken. A part of her was proud. All of her was proud.

 

How long had it been, anyway? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She surveyed all his features, as if drinking them in deep; she began to smile, absently. Wondrously. Hiccup's heart had not stopped thundering. 

 

Something about this woman was familiar. 

 

Had -- perhaps he had seen her, at the Allthing when he was younger? Or... even... no. No, she couldn't be from Berk. He would have  _remembered._

 

"C-could it be? After so long ..."

 

She knew him, somehow, she must... no, no, he didn't know her. He was convincing himself he did, but... no.  _He didn't know her._  

 

"How is this possible?"

 

He was profoundly uncomfortable. 

 

"I ... Wh-who are you? I don't know you."

 

She blinked, and all at once her face fell.

 

It was as if the fire had been sudden snuffed, and left only darkness.  

 

"... You don't?"

 

He backed away. 

 

Toothless rolled to his feet, and warbled with worry. Toothless trusted her... maybe they had met... but, then, how would she know Hiccup?

 

" _Who are you?_ H-how do you know my name?"

 

"I -- Hiccup..." 

 

Toothless padded up to Hiccup, nudging his snout into his human's belly, to calm him. Hiccup took one, two, three deep breaths, to try to quell the scent of absolute terror he was surely excreting. The dragons around sniffed the air.

 

He wished the woman whom he  _didn't know_ would stop looking at him.

 

"Hiccup... you, you weren't much more than a babe. I suppose... I suppose you wouldn't remember."

 

She needed to stop looking at him. 

 

"But... a mother never forgets, love."

 

He blinked. Blinked again, and then -- inhaled. It was half-gasp, and half-whimper.

 

No. 

 

His heart was in his ears. Toothless wrapped a wing around his back, and fixed the woman with a look, warning her to stop frightening his human. 

 

_No._

 

 

 

 

 

It had honestly been years since Hiccup had really thought on his mother. When he was young, he sometimes did; as he would go to sleep some nights -- his father did not hold him, or sing to him, after all -- he would pretend. A blizzard howled its wrath even through the rafters, and he hunkered down and imagined.

 

Mamma. Or Mummy, he couldn't remember which one he had called her. She didn't have a name anymore anyway; she was dead.

 

But for flicker-moments between the storm's blows, he would think of a warm woman. She had long hair. She loved him. Her voice had been gentle, and sweet, like a mother's should be. She made even his father sound sweet, too. 

 

She kissed his forehead, and he slept. In the morning, he would get up and was six or ten or fourteen again, and put his dead mother away. 

 

His dad rarely talked about her. When he did, it was always with a catch in his throat, a gruff and despondent mien that terrified Hiccup; it was as if his father would break. Once, sitting round the fire, he'd gripped Hiccup's shoulder and told him he was a lot like her. He supposed that was true; he remembered that she was slender, like him, and perhaps that her hair was dark, like his. It didn't mean much to him to hear it. She was a fixture only of the long-lost, dusty hindquarters of his memory; he was grown now. It was nice to know he wasn't some anomaly, that he at least looked related to one person who had once walked Midgard. But he didn't like to think of her. 

 

There was so little left, anyhow. 

 

In his mind's eye, she was akin to a goddess. She was Freyja, almost. She was his mother. 

 

She wasn't much more than that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His voice was broken, but his brow was heavy as stone. "My mother is dead." 

 

The woman fell back to a crouch, extending her hand again, this time plaintive. "Love, no... she's not --"

 

"Nice try. I was there. I should think... I should think I would r-remember something like _that_." 

 

"She didn't die that night, Hiccup. When, when a dragon took her? He didn't harm her, love."

 

 

Toothless growled at her, low. Hiccup almost tripped over Toothless's tail, in his haste to get further from this woman.

 

She looked at him still, still hopeful, hand reaching for his. He tried to muster a glare worthy of Stoick the Vast's son, whom he did not feel much like right then. 

 

His voice gained an unmanly pitch. "Look, I -- I don't care who you are. Let us go, p-please. We didn't mean any trouble."

 

Why in Odin's great name was she  _still looking at him?_

 

"No, Hiccup -- please, don't be afraid," she spoke, at not more than a whisper, and perhaps it was both of them now whose voices had become constricted so. "Here, I'll show you." 

 

"I don't w--"

 

She turned anyway, and whistled sudden in the echoing dark. It was a strange whistle, to be sure, and she shook her staff to accentuate the sound. Dragons chittered all around. 

 

The sound of hard beats swooped closer, and soon her four-winged riding dragon came in, from whichever cavern lead deeper into the mountain. Hiccup's back hit Toothless's wing, and Toothless's wing hit the snout of the Gnasherbelly behind them. The Gnasherbelly snuffed at them. 

 

The four-winged dragon -- was it a Stormcutter? -- clacked across the impromptu stage, great face edging closer to Hiccup. 

 

"Do you recognise him, love?"

 

 

He tried to keep his attention on the woman instead -- this was probably a distraction, what were the other dragons doing behind them? -- but he could not help it. He looked at the dragon, at its sweeping brow, hard jaw, and -- and -- 

 

It extended one claw to him. He made an undignified sound, and tried to back up further. 

 

"Do you remember, love? That night -- you were alone at home, and crying under the table, so scared... he tried to comfort you. Do you remember?" 

 

The Stormcutter nudged his claw under Hiccup's hand. On instinct, his fingers rubbed across the bumpy surface. 

 

The dragon chuffed at him. Their faces were impossibly close. 

 

"My baby boy... oh, I should have known you'd take after me..." the woman said, with a light and nervous laugh.

 

Her laugh. He could imagine it amplified, almost feral lilts as she -- Imagine his father holding her as they danced -- young as he was watching them, not understanding anything but that they were happy, which was all that mattered -- 

 

In a blink, Hiccup remembered tears -- his tears. A dragon's mighty crest folding as it warbled, low and soft and so contrary to its horrific visage bent low to him and reflecting his terror-struck face in wide eyes --

 

Turned to, to his mother -- standing tall and telling him in fearful and heroic coos not to be afraid --  a hand loose on a sword and a hand outstretched -- 

 

The woman's hand outstretched -- 

 

He could not help his gasp, shaky as anything. Shaky as a four-year-old child, about to lose everything. 

 

"Hiccup, little heart. Yes, that's what it was, wasn't it. You were my  _little heart._ "

 

He turned to look at the woman again. Her head was cocked dragon-like, with a shine in her eyes; she looked at him and through him and the scrutiny lit his soul on fire, in fear, in rememberings of lonely winter nights and his father drunken to numb wound-pain bemoaning his neverending wait to dance with dearest Val again -- 

 

 _Little heart._  Was it possible?

 

She smiled, tentative, cheeks gaunt in a way he recognised, from his own visage. So unlike Freyja. 

 

It wasn't possible. 

 

He thought he might have screamed. 

 

But she put out a hand and shushed him gently, and the sound subsided.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Hiccup had grown up. 

 

It was incredible.

 

Little Hiccup was just like her.

 

And it was incredible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She wanted to show him around. He wanted to just sit down.

 

His mother was, in his ancient memory, eternally patient. The epitome of everything safe and warm and sweet-smelling. She was the moon to his father's sun. Flawed only in that she did not exist.

 

This woman was jumpy, excitable, and so much like himself (or how Gobber said he was, at any rate) that he could not think. Toothless nudged his head into Hiccup's lap, and Hiccup's fingers could barely hold onto his friend's scaled cheeks, they shook so. 

 

He would not move from the dark cavern, though the dragons gathered there had long since flocked off to roost deeper in the nest. She had all but seized him to pull him inside, to show him -- whatever ghosts think most important for new Einherjar to know, perhaps. But she did not touch him. 

 

Her Stormcutter -- Cloudjumper, she called him -- blew warm breaths against Hiccup's hair, and Hiccup made no move to get further from him. But the woman crouched some two man's lengths apart.

 

"Are you sick, love?"

 

He did not answer.

 

"Do... have you eaten, Hiccup? Oh... h-how long have you been flying? Are you tired? You can come and rest...you and your friend here..."

 

He did not answer. Toothless nuzzled his jaw, and licked his brow. Hiccup did not blink.

 

"Hiccup? Hiccup, my child, please... "

 

He did not answer. He drew in a breath, weak and tremulous. 

 

Her voice dropped, to a murmur. "... W-what's your friend's name, love? Your Night Fury friend?" 

 

He did not answer. Then, he swallowed. Breathed in deep again, and blew it out with chattering teeth and stricken heart.

 

"Toothless," he said at last, but it could have been mistook for wind blowing in some far-away land.

 

"What, love? I'm sorry, I didn't hear."

 

"His name. Toothless."

 

"T-Toothless?"

 

Hiccup closed his eyes. Toothless murmured at him, and then turned an eye to the woman, to warble an affirmative at her. 

 

"Toothless. What an interesting name, love." 

 

Hiccup's head fell against Toothless's crown, and Toothless pressed his snout to him again; in doing so, Toothless rubbed the scant beard under Hiccup's jaw askew in a way that he'd felt before, that he thought might be proof indeed that he was awake after all. 

 

"Little heart... oh, I'm so... oh."

 

But he still had to know.

 

Hiccup spoke. The sounds were lost. 

 

"What, dearest? What did you say?"

 

It took Hiccup a moment to gather strength, to speak again. 

 

"Are we dead?" 

 

He was not looking at her, but he could hear the woman's noise, the broken sound she made as she lost her breath and her words all-simultaneous.

 

If they were dead, Hiccup supposed that was alright. He would have preferred Toothless survive, and make it safely home to Berk; guarded inside with all the other dragons he supposed, until Drago arrived. But even that led to ruin in the end. So this was alright. At least they were together. 

 

This was not quite how he'd imagined Valhalla to look either. But then again, who else would Odin want for his warriors, but dragon-kind? 

 

Or, maybe this was Helheim. He and Toothless were frozen deep under the ice, too far down for any Viking to find them -- an inglorious end to be sure -- and Hel herself was waiting in the catacombs. But if he were to dwell until Ragnarök here, he would have preferred not to be shaking still so. 

 

The dead did not catch tears in their eyes, as he did then. (When had that started?) Nor did they speak, as he thought he had done. And if Toothless were dead too, then why did his breath still feel so warm and lovely upon Hiccup's face and chest?

 

"Oh... darling, you're not dead.  _I'm_  not dead. We're all alive, here, love -- you're alive, and you've grown so... you must be, how old are you now? Eighteen? You've become... oh... Hiccup..."

 

Hiccup jumped. Her hand was on his knee. 

 

"I'm twenty."

 

"... Twenty? Oh... that long... "  

 

He blinked, eyes on her fingers. She squeezed, ever so gently. 

 

She ducked her head, to catch his gaze. It was an effort, but he managed to look at her face again. 

 

"Hello, love."

 

Already, the goddess was disappearing. 

 

"... Are you really my -- my mother?" 

 

"... If you're really Hiccup Stoicksson, then... yes."

 

He blinked. He was choking. 

 

"What..." his voice caught, broke. He tried again: "What did I... call you?"

 

"... What do you mean?"

 

"I don't r-remember. What I called you. If it was... Mamma, or..."

 

She looked away. And then: "I... I don't either." 

 

And at last, the tears fell. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toothless carried Hiccup. His head spun when he tried to stand by himself.

 

His mother. Back from the mists of time, from the winter bluster and candle-lit endless hours while his father whittled and didn't whistle, as he had in the forgotten past. When a woman completed the song. 

 

His mother. Standing on a verdant cliff, eyes on him as she pointed out towards the great chasm where thousands of multicoloured dragons flocked in the dappled arctic light. Looking like a woman who had adventures, who had a higher calling, with no time left for mortal cares. 

 

His mother. Wider around the waist and hips than he remembered, but somehow less pleasant-looking to hold. She reminded him too well of Astrid, full and thick and sharp-edged in a way he liked on his girlfriend, but never on his mother. 

 

He didn't truly remember much from the night his mother had... had been taken. So much was filled in by his imagination, in years later hearing the night mentioned grief-hushed and in passing. Now her story was jostling with his own, and he was trying to extract what he, Hiccup the four-year-old child left alone for eight minutes at home and told to stay quiet, had really witnessed. 

 

His mother. Unfortunate casualty of a war he had ended. Perhaps, he realised: a quiet motivator, a push he needed to want peace for Berk, and not just for himself.  

 

His mother, alive all this time, without him or his father. He felt he would burst. Whether it was his head or his heart that was overwhelmed, though, he couldn't be sure of. 

 

"This... is what you've been doing? For s-sixteen years?" 

 

She nodded. 

 

"You've been rescuing dragons?"

 

She nodded.

 

"This..."

 

"Are you... upset?"

 

"I... it's a lot to take... in." 

 

"I'm so... well, at least I'm not boring. Right?" 

 

The worst part was, of course, that he understood her. His hands were tight under Toothless's frills as he thought of the life he'd almost chosen, believing too in his darkest hour that he was just ill-suited for Berk, and that he and Toothless were better off in the wilds alone -- where no morals played, where no village judged -- than trying to make it work in a tiny place that hated them. 

 

But he also knew that he hadn't had to choose so. He knew the moment he saw the dragons' nest that he  _could not_ choose so; flight would have made him, indeed, Hiccup the Useless and Cowardly at last.

 

He looked at his mother.

 

She asked him, of course, what his dad had thought. He thought of his dad's lonely moments, and of what... how...  _how_ he could possibly tell his dad any of this. If he ever saw his dad again. 

 

"He, he changed. They all did. Soon, everyone back on Berk had dragons of their own. You should see, how different it is ..."

 

She scoffed. "If only it were possible. Believe me, I tried."

 

He blinked. "You did?" 

 

"Oh, yes. But people can't change, Hiccup. I... you... we're just different." 

 

"But... Dad did change! Everyone did. Did you really try to convince them?"

 

She sighed, looked away. "So, so many times. Your father and I... well. I didn't have proof. And they wouldn't believe me. Your father had no patience for it. He's not one to argue with."

 

"... You fought?"

 

"Oh, yes. What?" she laughed, seeing his face, "you thought we didn't?"

 

His expression must have been more honest than he'd wanted, for she lost her mirth immediately. "I was four years old," he said, voice regaining some of its strength now.

 

"... Oh. Right, yes. We didn't want to fight in front of you. I forgot."

 

She  _forgot._ Okay.

 

"We never did know how much you understood, I remember. You didn't quite talk yet."

 

"Yeah, Dad said. Gobber says the only reason they didn't brand me mute was 'cause I just made, I just made tons of nonsense noise anyway."

 

His mother laughed. Oh, and it was a sweet sound, and so painful, and he wanted to sob and smile all at once. His father's hand around her waist, laughing like that in front of the fire. Spinning. Dreaming.  

 

"Oh, yes. And look at you now; become quite the quiet one, haven't you?"

 

"No, not really. Astrid calls me a loudmouth. But right now... there's... right now, I --"

 

She completely ignored the important part of his statement. "Astrid? Who's Astrid?"

 

And now she made things uncomfortable. He tried to mask his misery as he answered. "My girlfriend." 

 

"Oh. Oh, my," she said, trying to smile at him. He didn't quite manage a smile back. 

 

 She had so many things to show him, she said, and they were indeed all wondrous. Had he been in a better state of mind, he would have been elated, to learn so much and to see so much and discover he had a mother who was  _just like him._

 

"Are you hungry?"

 

"N-no, honestly... I don't feel too well. Toothless is starving, though." Toothless huffed under him, and Hiccup cracked a tremulous laugh at last. "I know 'cause you're  _always_ hungry, bud. I don't have to ask anymore." 

 

"Good! It's feeding time."

 

But Toothless refused. Hiccup was willing to fly him out for food, but Toothless did not want to jostle his human any more. Hiccup's mother's face seemed to fall, but she invited them back into the catacombs, showing them to a round room with a hearth and careless furniture, where she said they could rest while the flock fed. She offered to give Toothless a ride -- he was a light load for a Gnasherbelly or a Tuggorfoot -- but again he refused. She let them be at last, and the sounds of many thousands of wing-beats outside fled past, as their shadows flickered across the walls and over Hiccup's closed eyes as the two of them lay tangled together. 

 

The tempest eventually subsided, leaving them in near-silence but for the dripping of water. 

 

Hiccup wanted to sleep. But he could not. 

 

Toothless held him close, wishing his human would stop smelling so ill, and tried to warm him better with great purrs and snuffing breaths. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Valka returned, carrying a basket with fish for her little boy's Night Fury (who would have thought!), she stopped dead.

 

She'd feared perhaps he would leave; she had no right to keep him there, after all. And he seemed so verily upset. 

 

But he was still there. He was sleeping, in fact. Head cushioned gently against his dragon's flank, one hand limp in his lap, the other brushing against a mighty black jaw. Hair still the same colour, just shy of red, falling over his eyes, falling across the stern brow he'd gotten from his father. But the rest... the rest of his face was all Valka, all  _hers._ It had not been clear when he was young. But now, it was. He took after her.  _Of course_ he did.

 

 

Hiccup made a noise in his sleep, small and weak and she wished to gather him up, hold him close, make him her little babe again. Protect his little fragile shell from the chill, keep him safe through the cold.

 

But he was twenty years old. He would not want that.

 

"Hiccup, love?"

 

His friend -- Toothless -- heard her first. One of his ear-plates flicked up, and he opened his eyes. Smelled the fish in her basket and sat up, nudging Hiccup in that ungentle way brothers do, she remembered. Hiccup blinked at her, and brought a slow hand up to his face.

 

Valka's heart broke when he rubbed his eyes. She'd seen that little gesture so many times. Sleepy and yawning and precious, her little heart; his hand was bigger, now, but he was the same little boy. 

 

"M-Mother?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her cooking was bad. That was another thing he didn't remember.

 

She pressed him to eat, just take a bite or two, and he tried. But his throat and guts were swollen closed, and so he gave the greater portion of it to Toothless. 

 

His mother shed her outer armour, and soon Hiccup cast off his entirely. He stretched, to be rid of the cricks and cracks he'd formed sleeping in it. She had left hers piled a little ways away, and he placed his there too; he nudged it into a neater stack, to conserve room. 

 

"You're still pale..."

 

"Don't worry about me."

 

"Oh, but... I'm y-...oh."

 

Toothless licked stray bits of fish from Hiccup's fingers, in the silence.

 

"I'm sorry my -- my cooking's not the best. I'm a little out of practice."

 

"It's okay."

 

"Your -- your father said that too," she said, laughing. "He always said he didn't marry me for it."

 

"He did?"

 

"Yes."

 

Hiccup considered, and smiled. "Well, guess that explains some things. Dad can eat anything, really. He must have built up an immunity, thanks to you."

 

His mother laughed again. Had his father been around this hearth with them, it would be as if no time had passed. 

 

But that's not how things worked. It had been so long.

 

"Oh, dear. And what of you?"

 

"I'm, er, I'm a decent cook myself, I 'spose. Had to be, I couldn't eat anything Dad ever made, certainly."  

 

Again. She laughed. 

 

Perhaps his father had sung, once. 

 

This was killing him. 

 

"Maybe you could teach me."

 

"I -- I, yeah. Maybe."

 

His mother smiled. The grey hair he supposed was new, and the laughing creases around her eyes... but, sixteen years shed, he could perhaps believe it. He was starting to believe it.

 

Hiccup Stoicksson, a youth with two parents again... what would that be like? 

 

Here, with the low low firelight in the pit, and the sounds of talking dragons roosting beyond, and the quiet glow of the Alpha's handiwork... it was a surprising home. But, a home. He could imagine it. 

 

He supposed, in a different universe... 

 

But he was grown now. It was too late.

 

Hiccup could be chief of a home like this. He could  _do it._

 

But it was not to be. His dad was waiting for him... waiting, at his inheritance. He was grown now, his dad said.

 

There was Drago. Out there, somewhere, persisting in belligerence. War broke homes, and unnecessarily.

 

There was Berk, needing him. He was grown now, his dad said. Hiccup had better act like it.

 

"Do you want some -- some water? The, the ice here gives off some of the cleanest in the world. It's perfectly safe."

 

"Alright..."

 

As she rose and tipped a gourd under a steady stream, and as the new-born spring sun glittered through the ice, he pictured again walls of wood, and creaking rafters. 

  

That was his mother, standing there. 

 

Hiccup was grown now. 

 

He didn't need this.  

 

He took a breath.

 

He needed this.

 

"Mother..."

 

"Yes, little heart?"

 

"...I... um."

 

"What is it?"

 

"I... you know, I don't. Remember much. I was just a kid."

 

"... Yes?"

 

"But, er... there was a song." 

 

She put the gourd down lightly, and turned to look at him.

 

"Yes, love?"

 

"There were a bunch of songs, I think. I don't remember the words, though."

 

"No? What songs, love?"

 

"Er... well, there was the washing song," he laughed. "I don't think that one had many words. Something about being dry. You know."

 

"Yes, well... washing songs are rarely. Wordy." 

 

"Yeah..."

 

"What were the others?"

 

"I don't... there were probably a lot. There was one... Dad whistled, I think. Maybe. Dad doesn't whistle, so I'm not sure, if -- if I'm just imagining that."

 

"Oh. Yes... I know that one."

 

"You do? Do you... remember any of the others?"

 

"I -- well, I don't know. I don't know which songs you're speaking of."

 

"... I don't remember the words. I'm sorry."

 

In the silence, both of them looked down, and away. The glacier was pulling their continents apart. 

 

"Do you remember the tune?"

 

"I... ah. I don't, you know. Sing. Or, or whistle. Dad never taught me how to whistle." 

 

"But you remember the tune?"   

 

"... Yes."

 

Something rustled. Toothless stood and padded away, leaving Hiccup's now-exposed back and side cold. But, within a moment, a gentle hand had placed itself in the chill space. 

 

"Maybe I remember the words, my little heart."

 

Hiccup allowed himself to be folded into her side. She brought another hand around, tentative as first frost, to envelop him entirely. He allowed it. He wiggled closer in. 

 

His hand was gripping her arm, probably painfully. His hands were bigger now than hers.

 

In the quiet, in the stillness, he cleared his throat. He didn't look at her. 

 

He was twenty. He was four. 

 

When he next opened his eyes, his mother would still be there. She would  _still be there._ There were plenty of opportunities left, to be twenty. 

 

His voice cracked. He was too soft. But he tried to hum a tune, anyway. "I'm ... sorry, that's not it." He changed his pitch slightly, but it still wasn't right. He couldn't do it the way it sounded, in his head. 

 

"Try again. It's alright."

 

He could feel his face grow heated. But he gave it another shot. 

 

It was closer, this time. There was a hand in his hair. 

 

"I ... there are five verses, love. To that song."

 

"There are?"

 

They did not but whisper. 

 

He tried the tune a fourth time. And then, just as he was about to give up on it, his mother sang. Again.

 

His mamma was singing again.  

 

_"T-the moon leaps wild in the stars tonight_

_My dear, my child, never weep_

_For I am here while the sunlight fades_

_My dear, my child, never weep."_

 

He kept up the hum. Her voice was thin as thread. 

 

_"The lamb lays down to its mother's breast_

_My dear, my child, never bleat_

_Fox-pups sleep warm in the burrow tonight_

_My dear, my child, never bleat._

 

_The raven above heeds Mother Frigga's song_

_My dear, my child, never fear_

_And Father Odin keeps his guard well-stocked_

_My dear, my child, never fear._

 

_The wolf cries out in the Jötunn's storm_

_My dear, my child, never peep_

_But spring comes nigh in the world's ever-leaves_

_My dear, my child, never peep._

 

_The sky is dark on this winter's night_

_My dear, my child, I love thee_

_But the hearth is warm as our happiness_

_My dear, my child, I love thee."_

 

Her voice splintered. She was no goddess.

 

Their eyes met, both sets wet.

 

His mamma's hand cupped his cheek gently, and his tears tumbled down over her thumb. She brushed them away. 

 

"You're crying, little heart."

 

He would be ashamed later. He would be manly later. Later. 

 

"So are you, Mamma." 

 

And Hiccup was warm in his mamma's arms at last, after sixteen years.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So I started writing this fic in the very beginning of November, aaand after that first week of feverish writing it has sat in my drafts basically untouched. I still intend to finish it! But I figured I ought to post some of it anyway. Most of the rest is already written, there's basically one scene I have left to write, but I have no ETA on that.   
> Anyway, a quick note: the lullaby that Valka and Hiccup sing is to the tune of the humming bit in "Should I Know You"! So if this were in the movie, its usage in the score beforehand would be indicative of Hiccup's having remembered it.


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

 

 

If Hiccup had thought he'd wake up in the open air, well... he was wrong. 

 

That was dawn, barely staining the horizon. Those were clouds. This was bitter wind, scraping snow against his face and catching in his dry throat, screaming life. There was Toothless, chirping good-morning at every new friend who came into wing with them. There was Mamma. 

 

The sun did not shine her away. Across the waters and the flock's usual roosting-grounds, flying together and dancing in the cliff-side air and the pink-bled sky and the last long-dark's vestiges of Bifrost hanging there, she had stayed. 

 

"Oh, when I'm up here... I don't even feel the cold! I just feel..."

 

"Greater."

 

They looked at each other. They both smiled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Are we there yet?" Hiccup called, with a grin.

 

"Oh, just a little further, dear!" 

 

"Where are we going, anyway?"

 

"You'll see!" 

 

Already they were far past any land Hiccup recognised. He balanced his map against the rise of the saddle, and tried to scribble in approximations, but soon the flock was banking down. They wove under a frozen arch, a pathway driven through a glacier's heart.

 

"Mind your heads!"

 

Hiccup ducked to avoid collision with a fang of ice, and wondered if anyone would find his helmet in the glacial sea, so far away from here. He supposed he could go look for it... it wasn't the first time he'd lost a helmet to water, after all...

 

But that would take him south again. 

 

His smile faded. 

 

"Here we are!"

 

"Huh?"

 

He blinked up, and saw another Bewilder-ice fortress sparkling in the sparse light. Its icy spikes were blown by wind, its height rising above the snowy bluster below, appearing as Asgard rising through the clouds. 

 

"... What is  _that?"_

 

Hiccup could see, further on still, the expanse of a glacier; it was flat across and clean as an anvil, with walls so tall he thought perhaps this really was Asgard, and those the fortifications that led Svaðilfari to sire Sleipnir. In tiny islands of ice in the water below, he saw seals leaping into the sea, upon sighting the dragons above. 

 

"What is this place?"

 

"The nursery!"

 

"The  _nurs--"_

 

His exclamation was lost as they dove in and down and under another great floe, through a tunnel, endless-long and reflecting and echoing the tempest of dragons flying through it, and then -- into a vast open space, with blown ice all around and the sky a ceiling above. It was the interior of this second sanctuary, as vast and hollow inside as the first, and Hiccup gasped aloud. The rest of the flock followed them into the great palace, and dispersed as each dragon went to a particular ledge to roost. Sudden squawks and calls sounded all around and -- oh, the babieswere saying hello!

 

On every ledge, every precarious peak, sword-polished sliver, little dragons of every colour imaginable were jumping about; some nests were built on inclines that should have tumbled the tykes down below, and many did slip in their excitement. But each parent was careful as feather-down, catching them in cradling wings before they could fall far, and none of the babies came to harm. The fish they had feasted on earlier was coming up again, to help the infants grow, and never had Hiccup heard so much delight voiced at regurgitated food. 

 

Cloudjumper and Mamma flapped in beside them, and Hiccup looked at her wide-eyed and wordless.

 

"This is the nursery?"

 

"Oh, yes! We lay our eggs here, and the little ones stay here safe until they can fly back with us home. The Dapple-breast Ruggors stay here with them, while the parents are away; they are really the very best of nurses." 

 

"This... wow... I mean, I've seen... but, never like this..."

 

"It's the safest thing for the little ones, really... so many are trampled, you know, or even blow the nest up, still in the shell... and, if -- well, sometimes they would be thought a nice meal, when we have wanderers fly in for a night's rest. We protect them as best we can."

 

"I -- yeah. This, this is incredible."

 

"Come! I'll introduce you! The babies will want to meet their two newest brothers."

 

Hiccup laughed, frozen-thin. "Okay." 

 

They swooped over then, circling the walls and stopping at outcroppings, hanging on to the walls, to greet nests and mother-dragons and to let the little ones take a sniff at Toothless and Hiccup. One nest of Nadders had very young babies, and Hiccup smelt fright-odd to them. They tumbled over each other, trying to get away from him. 

 

"Hey, hey, it's okay! I'm a friend."

 

Toothless chuffed and warbled at them, assurances that Hiccup was not a bad and scary human, and in moments one brave one bumped her snout into Hiccup's palm. He laughed.  

 

"Hey there! Good to meet you too, little girl." The mother Nadder clucked at them, and Hiccup gave her a nod. "And you too, madam." Mamma, hanging onto Cloudjumper above them, sighed. 

 

"She lost her mate earlier this year, to infection -- she's been so lonely." 

 

"Oh -- I'm sorry, madam, to hear that." The Nadder nudged his hand, and bowed lightly. 

 

Mamma chuckled. "She likes you a lot; she finds you a very strapping young male, I think."

 

"Ah -- what?"

 

Mamma laughed then, and the mother Nadder chirped too. Toothless spoke to her, and she ducked her head one, two, three times, and bid them come again. They leapt away, to continue making their rounds, and Hiccup waved goodbye at them.

 

It was nearing midday now, as they visited at last a nest nestled high up, almost near the open rim of the palace. A family of Tuggorfoots was huddled there, the mother struggling to feed up a clutch of fifteen ravenous toddlers. She had already left and returned twice, to fetch even more fish to give them, but each trip was exhausting; she had lost part of one wing, and flight was a struggle.  

 

Hiccup slid off of Toothless, his prosthetic slipping on the ice for a moment. Mamma saw it and reached out to grab him, but he rotated his ice-pick foot into place, and managed to stay upright. 

 

Mother and son and Night Fury and Stormcutter came in to nose and scratch their hellos to the big little family, and the many babies flapped and tripped themselves all over Hiccup as he laughed and tried and failed to hold them all. They loved him already; he knew just where to scratch them, and he smelt like their other furry mamma, whom they loved too. 

 

"You've got quite the knack for this."

 

"Oh, I -- I do? Thank you. I like kids, I guess." 

 

Mamma laughed, but it was more of a hum. Hiccup wasn't looking at her, but if he had -- he'd have known she was watching him with all tenderness, and sadness. 

 

Soon the mother Tuggorfoot gathered the children up on her back and in her paws, and took them down for a spin, as they shrieked their delight and hopped all over her. Hiccup watched them go with a smile, but soon turned when a sound like snuffling came from the vacated nest behind him.

 

"Oh, hello! You're still here, are you?" He reached down to greet a little Tuggorfoot, so small even he had not seen him before. The baby's eyes were barely open yet, and his infant scales were still milk-light. He had been left behind, it seemed, and Hiccup gave him a little tickle, to stop his cries. "Shh -- shh, it's okay, little guy! Don't worry. I'm Hiccup, and this is Toothless. We're friends! You like friends, right?" The baby blinked at him, and rolled over to catch his fingers in his claws. Hiccup laughed as the tyke nibbled on him. "Ooh, got quite a bite there, little guy! You're gonna be a big man some day, I can bet." Toothless huffed. "Shush, you." The Tuggorfoot lost interest then in Hiccup's fingers, and began to cry anew. "Oh, no -- it's okay! Don't worry, we'll stay here until your mamma comes back. No, no -- I promise. Your mamma will come back, just -- real soon! You don't think Mamma would just abandon you, right? Nah, of course not; she loves you, right? You're her little baby. She's gotta get all the cuddles in while you're little, you know; when you grow up you're gonna be the biggest, bitiest, most awesome man of them all. Right? Right. But you'll still be nice, even when you're grown, I can tell. Your mamma wants to see you grow up big and strong, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I promise. She'll be back soon." The baby tried to grasp Hiccup's hand in his little claws, to climb up his arm; he put his other hand beneath the Tuggorfoot's rump, and gave him a boost. The Tuggorfoot climbed, bat-like, up and down Hiccup's arm to his shoulder, and decided to nestle for a moment in the warmth of his armpit, there. "Yeah, that's me, portable hearth. I keep it all stored up in here, where it's nice and smelly. Uh-huh. You guys keep your fire all in your bellies -- we humans have it under our arms. You okay? Don't worry; we won't let anything happen to you."

 

A squawk then, from below: the mother Tuggorfoot had discovered her missing child, and come labouriously up again, to rescue him from the cold. Upon discovering the babysitters there, she gave a great sigh, and landed heavily. 

 

"See, buddy? I was right! Mamma's back! Mamma didn't forget you." The baby cried out in delight, and almost fell from Hiccup's arms. "Whoa, easy! Let me -- yeah. There you go. I'm sorry, madam -- he wanted a cuddle. Here you go." The little Tuggorfoot clambered up his mother's crown, and nuzzled her there. He was her weakest of babies, but she had not abandoned him. She would never. "You alright, little buddy? Uh-huh. See?" He touched his chest. "I promised." Both mother and son cooed at him, thanks and come-again, and they took off back down, to play with the other children on the ice far below.

 

Toothless murmured as they watched the pair glide down. There was a catch in Hiccup's chest.

 

He stiffened sudden, feeling a movement against his scalp. But it was his own human mamma, rumpling his hair with the utmost care. She knelt down next to him. 

 

"H-Hiccup..."

 

He almost couldn't look at her; his throat was suddenly tight, frozen closed. "What?"

 

"I... I'm so... I'm so sorry, little heart."

 

He swallowed. 

 

"I... um."

 

"... All this time... oh. You're so grown up, Hiccup. But where was I?"

 

He looked away, out at the happy nest -- domesticity and warmth, even here in the north. "You were here," he said, with some misery. But then he looked back at her, and smiled. "And now you're here." 

 

Mamma looked at him, eyes gleaming, and nodded slowly. Her hand in his hair and on his cheek was... it was like falling asleep, like singing softly. His hand was around her wrist, now. 

 

"Yes. But now you're here too, love." 

 

"Yeah. And now I'm here too."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiccup sat on the edge of a snowy cliff, some fifteen minutes south of the nursery, filling in his map; he'd added so much, with Mamma's help too, in the past day. Toothless was chasing gulls around, flinging snow at them and laughing in his throat. 

 

Hiccup's charcoal-stick met the edge of his map, and he reached for a new sheet; but he had run out of vellum, already. There was more at home, obviously. But... 

 

He sagged, looking again at the horizon. The southerly sky, dark and clouded over, with a thin band of radiant fire at its hem. He glanced west.

 

He had been taken off-course. He should go west. 

 

"Hiccup?"

 

"Hey! Mamma. Hi," he said and filled his face with all brightness as she sat next to him -- her sit a crouch at first, and then twisting to adopt a more human gesture. 

 

"Hi," she said, looking fondly at him.

 

"Hi."'

 

"How are you?"

 

"I'm -- I'm good. A lot of things happened, today, but. I'm... um."

 

"... Good things, I hope?"

 

"I... yeah. Good. Very... yeah. Very good things."  

 

Her hand was at his neck again, fingers brushing the hair at his ears, ever-softly. "Good. It's been a good day for me, too."

 

"Really?"

 

She nodded, mouth pressed thin. 

 

"So... what..." she struggled, not looking at him, "What did you think? Did you... like it?"

 

"Ohh, yeah. It... yeah. It was... it's amazing. This is all amazing."

 

"You think so?"

 

"Yeah! It's, it's great, really. I... well. I don't know how... to explain this. But, um."

 

"Yes?"

 

"I, well. You know, when we, when we -- flew, together? It was.... it was like... I got back something. Like, that I didn't _know_  that I'd lost.So -- so that's the part that I want to remember."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"Oh -- no, no, I'm... I don't know what I'm talking about, don't listen to me." He laughed. "I'm making nonsense noise again."

 

Mamma hummed, so sweetly, and looked at him; maybe she felt as lost as he. As doomed.

 

"You... my babe, you deserved better. So much better. Will -- you, you're already... oh," she broke off, swallowing tears and words together. 

 

"Mamma."

 

"Yes, love?"

 

"It's okay." 

 

"It's not."

 

"... No. It's not. But -- I..."

 

Her fingers found his chin, tilting his face towards hers. 

 

"Is there... I promise, Hiccup. If... if you let me. If you give me another, another chance. The two of us, together. New memories, new..."

 

"I... um."

 

"This time... I'll do better, I swear. Let me -- oh, I can show you... there are so many things I have to teach you, love. I-- "

 

Hiccup laughed, or tried to. His voice was dry. "I..."

 

"Oh, I know, it's doesn't make up for it, but... And I know there's so much left, there's so much work for us to do, so much to fix. But, I will be better, for you, this time. I'll teach you all I know, everything I have learned about dragons, you will -- the family already loves you, it's as if you were born here, little heart. You and I -- together, we can change the world, we can make it a safer, better, more beautiful place for dragons everywhere, for every nest... Hiccup, this is what we were  _made_ for. Don't you see?" 

 

".... What we were made for?"

 

"Yes, little heart. Our gift, we owe it to the world... for a better future. For peace. We will do this."

 

"Really..?"

 

"Yes. I promise."

 

"I -- that sounds incredible!" 

 

"Ohh!" Mamma cried out, and Hiccup sudden found himself embraced, his arms trapped in her grip. She was trembling. "Hiccup... my son..."

 

He was stiff in her arms, but felt himself fill with absolute hope. What he had lost.... it was here.

 

"Mamma..."

 

Her hug tightened. "My baby..."

 

"Mamma..." He whispered, bending his face down, into her neck and staying warm there, as her hand cupped the back of his head. 

 

"Little heart..."

 

"I... I missed you..."

 

"I missed you too, my dear." 

 

He didn't want to leave her arms. But he pushed himself up anyway.

 

"This -- you have no idea! This is amazing, Mamma, really. After so long! Just imagine, with you and the dragons -- I can't imagine, how Drago wouldn't understand! If we talked to him together!"

 

"What? Ohh, love, there's no talking to  _Drago."_

 

"But..."

 

"No, dear. We protect our own -- humans aren't a part of it."

 

"But..."

 

His mother stood. 

 

"Come on, love! It's time we get back. We'll need to find you some furs soon, for your bed... oh, and there's that wood, I'm sure you'll like to work with that, you can make more of your gadgets with it..." she thought aloud as she walked away. 

 

But Hiccup was still sitting on the cliff. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In wing now with the rest of the flock headed home, with his mother riding at the head, Hiccup bit his lip. Toothless whirred up at him. 

 

"Yeah... I know."

 

Toothless warbled, in sympathy. A suggestion.

 

"I can't. I... no. This is how it has to be. We can't just wait; we need to take initiative here, you know?"

 

Toothless picked up his pace, to bring them to the head of the flock. But Hiccup stopped him.

 

"No! No, if... I won't be able. She won't understand. This is for Berk. She won't get it."

 

Toothless huffed. Then, he hung his head. Hiccup rubbed along his crown with one hand.

 

"You with me, bud?"

 

Toothless always was. 

 

"Okay. Let's go." 

 

And so. 

 

They banked sudden away and down, turning towards the west, leaving the rest of the flock to continue straight south without them. 

 

Hiccup thought perhaps he heard a sound. A shout. He laid his head down against Toothless's crest eyes closed, blinded for that moment by the weight of -- of what he was made for, he guessed. They raced through and under the wandering icebergs, a stark shadow against the white and pink and the water below.

 

"I'm sorry, Mamma," he whispered, and meant it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Valka saw Hiccup go. 

 

The rest of the flock continued home. But Cloudjumper and she stayed there, in the air and in place, as she watched that black dragon disappear. 

 

She had thought... oh. 

 

She could not make him stay, if he didn't want to. But, she had thought... 

 

Cloudjumper snuffed. 

 

They should go home. She had her children to worry about. 

 

And that was exactly the problem. 

 

One hand was tentative-out in the air. She swallowed. He was twenty; he was grown. She could not make him stay. Didn't she owe him that -- to understand? 

 

So they flew home. Without her son.  

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
